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PC gaming on a boat?


JakeFruitcake

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Not exactly on topic but something to be aware of, boats are dusty places in the winter and I know of a couple of boaters who had issues with their laptops overheating and found the fan and heatsink clogged. 

Just something to consider when spending cash on a high end system 

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1 minute ago, tree monkey said:

Not exactly on topic but something to be aware of, boats are dusty places in the winter and I know of a couple of boaters who had issues with their laptops overheating and found the fan and heatsink clogged. 

Just something to consider when spending cash on a high end system 

Good point. I think it is dust that killed my solar controller fan.I recently cleaned loads of dust out of my inverter too and laptop fan.

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When I was a brat I remember my dad and my uncle played telephone chess. Phone the other person and state your move. The other person would call you back once they had decided theirs. This could be several minutes later or several weeks, or anything in between. 

 

Very little graphics power necessary.

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1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

When I was a brat I remember my dad and my uncle played telephone chess. Phone the other person and state your move. The other person would call you back once they had decided theirs. This could be several minutes later or several weeks, or anything in between. 

 

Very little graphics power necessary.

Telephone?  How very modern... I remember postal chess. 

 

I also once met a bloke who was playing 17 games of postal chess with different people at the same time, all in his head because he couldn't be bothered to set up the boards.  I do suspect he was quite a way along the spectrum though.  And he was a senior civil servant... 

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1 hour ago, TheBiscuits said:

Telephone?  How very modern... I remember postal chess. 

 

I also once met a bloke who was playing 17 games of postal chess with different people at the same time, all in his head because he couldn't be bothered to set up the boards.  I do suspect he was quite a way along the spectrum though.  And he was a senior civil servant... 

 

I'd have been more concerned if the 17 games had all been with the same person!

 

More seriously, this is the type of person who makes an excellent bellringer....

 

 

 

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16 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

Telephone?  How very modern... I remember postal chess. 

 

I also once met a bloke who was playing 17 games of postal chess with different people at the same time, all in his head because he couldn't be bothered to set up the boards.  I do suspect he was quite a way along the spectrum though.  And he was a senior civil servant... 

My father used to do this... quite amazing. 

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On 21/10/2018 at 11:49, JakeFruitcake said:

Yeah I think I’ll have to just look into the details you suggest. I was just hoping that someone would have an easy answer ?

 

Lots of people did have an easy answer: unfortunately, like happens to a lot of folk asking questions here, you just didn't get the answer you were hoping for!  Might I propose an alternative tack and suggest you look for some less demanding games that you can play on a less power hungry platform whilst you're on the boat... or at least whilst the boat doesn't have a shore supply?  Which leads to another possibility - choose a mooring with power, even maybe a telephone landline, which will support your pastime.

 

 

On 22/10/2018 at 12:09, mrsmelly said:

This summer one afternoon we moored just before Brentford near the main road and as nearly every day it was a fab sunny one. A young bloke assumingly on his lunch break appeared and he was carrying what looked like a briefcase. he sat on the grass with a sarnie and opened the briefcase which opened out flat revealing a solar panel  I suppose twice the size of a laptop in area. he also in the box had a tablet. he plugged the tablet into the briefcase and I asked him how it worked and apparently in the sun the solar more or less ran the tablet. It was a purpose built unit that all fitted together. pretty good bit of kit.

This sounds impressive until you factor in that if his tablet battery really can't last a lunchtime its knackered and there's a far simpler way to sort that out!  He can put the tablet in his pocket then too and not have to carry the blooming briefcase. :D

 

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6 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

 

Lots of people did have an easy answer: unfortunately, like happens to a lot of folk asking questions here, you just didn't get the answer you were hoping for!  Might I propose an alternative tack and suggest you look for some less demanding games that you can play on a less power hungry platform whilst you're on the boat... or at least whilst the boat doesn't have a shore supply?  Which leads to another possibility - choose a mooring with power, even maybe a telephone landline, which will support your pastime.

 

 

This sounds impressive until you factor in that if his tablet battery really can't last a lunchtime its knackered and there's a far simpler way to sort that out!  He can put the tablet in his pocket then too and not have to carry the blooming briefcase. :D

 

Yeah but no but ya see the solar thingy will probably power it all the time the sun is out so as the battery works in the evening int dark innitt? ?

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4 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Yeah but no but ya see the solar thingy will probably power it all the time the sun is out so as the battery works in the evening int dark innitt? ?

Yeah - he might also run his lights off it on a night time, eh? :D

 

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17 hours ago, cuthound said:

I don't suppose the old text based computer games, such as "Zork" use much power?

That would have depended what they were running on. Sometimes programmers on the old mainframes amused themselves by writing games, and I can remember a game that ran on a DEC VAX which occupied a large computer room. You might have crammed one of the smaller VAX models onto a narrowboat, but providing enough power would be just one problem. It had to be a very smooth supply, no spikes, and the machine needed serious air conditioning. Movement of the boat would probably be a problem too.

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2 hours ago, Peter X said:

That would have depended what they were running on. Sometimes programmers on the old mainframes amused themselves by writing games, and I can remember a game that ran on a DEC VAX which occupied a large computer room. You might have crammed one of the smaller VAX models onto a narrowboat, but providing enough power would be just one problem. It had to be a very smooth supply, no spikes, and the machine needed serious air conditioning. Movement of the boat would probably be a problem too.

 

I played "Zork" and other text based games on an IBM XT circa 1983-84.

 

My work at that time was project managing the design, specification, installation and commissioning of Uninteruptible Power Supplies and cooling systems to support main frame computers for what is now BT.

Edited by cuthound
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